


One Super Family

by madasthehatterforalice



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Get Together, M/M, Memory Loss, Superfamily
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasthehatterforalice/pseuds/madasthehatterforalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life after shwarma settles down but the Avengers are still superheroes so it can't settle down that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After the shwarma and the massively painful debrief, Stark Tower, thanks, in part, to its remaining “A,” got redubbed Avengers Tower. Despite all the belly aching he vocalized, Tony didn’t really mind that much. There were more than enough big shiny things out there with his name on them. The name is only solidified when the Avengers themselves move in. there was clean up and ribbing over “Stark Tower” being just “A Tower.”

It’s a logical step really. It makes deployment easier when the whole team starts in one place. Of course with half the Avengers homeless, at least this planet and century, one already living there, the remaining two were only too happy to trade their cell-like SHIELD accommodations for the luxuries of “Avengers Tower.” The fact Tony had issued invitations and designed quarters for them was besides the point, or it could have been the entire point but Tony liked to think it was his smiling face that did it.

It was about that time, when everyone was just getting settled, that Pepper left. He didn’t begrudge her for it, living with Tony Stark was one thing, living with Iron Man was another, and when Iron Man invites his superhero buddies to live there too...Well, it’s no wonder she left.

Oddly enough, the 5 of them, 6 when Thor wasn’t in Asgard or “wooing the Lady Jane”, hadn’t brought the tower to the ground yet and it was beginning to feel a lot like a home, even if the “family” that resided there was more than odd and worse than dysfunctional.

* * *

 

Far too soon before coffee Tony walked into the kitchen of what had become the commons level of the Avenger’s floors. He had a hangover the likes of which could cripple the Hulk and the only cure was coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. However, that didn’t explain how he came to be there despite starting the night before in Miami.

Normally he’d say his mysterious arrival in his quarters at Avengers Tower would be Pepper’s doing, however lately someone else had taken that role. The culprit being the 26 year old World War II veteran that was currently making eggs.

Tony had seen it on the TV before. Steve ducking into some far too extravagant bar and re-emerging with a wasted Tony tucked under his arm like a misbehaving child. The press hounding him each step to the waiting car, because the press are always there when Tony messes up, “Captain! Captain! Is it true Iron Man faces being dropped from the Avengers if Tony Stark can’t drop the bottle? What about the rumors that your night time rescues are as more than a teammate?”

Steve doesn’t answer when they question his sexuality, or Tony’s. He just gives them this sharp stare of, “Is that _really_ what you think is going on here?” But he never actually comes out and denies it for the falsehood it is.

Tony dropped himself in a chair next to Clint. It was a sausage fest in the kitchen that morning, or at least, Tony guessed it was morning since there was breakfast food present. Neither Thor nor Natasha were present. Thor because he was in New Mexico “aiding in the repair of the Bifrost,” which Tony was _fairly_ certain was some weird euphemism for trying to create an Asgardian/human hybrid, and god only knew where Natasha was.

Clint was eating what appeared to be a full loaf of toast, the guy _really_ liked his toast, sporting a hickey large enough for its own zip code on his neck. While Bruce ate yogurt, looking very amused which said Tony had probably _just_ missed hearing where that sizable hickey came from. Tony stopped in his observation of his tablemates when Steve shoved a plate of eggs in front of him with a look that clearly stated that the Star Spangled Man had a plan to shove said eggs down the genius’ throat should he try to once again skip out on breakfast.

“Thanks, Mom,” Tony snarked at him, reluctantly picking up his fork, knowing from experience he wouldn’t be allowed any coffee until he’d eaten at least some of what he was presented. He’d tried sneaking past Steve to get coffee before and apparently his super-soldiering skills extended to the kitchen as well.

“I’m not your mom,” Steve’s back says to him, he was already back at the stove making something that crackles, probably bacon or sausage because he was 40’s like that.

“Yeah,” Clint said around bites of toast, “he’s more like your neglected but devoted housewife.”

Steve turned to join Tony in staring at Clint as Bruce chipped in, spoon paused half-way to his mouth, “Does that make the rest of us their children?”

“You have to admit,” said Natasha, entering the room though acting as if she had always been there, which, knowing her, she might have been, “there is a certain...parental way they lead this group. Not to mention the near spousal relationship between them.”

At this point the occupants of the room turned their attention back to the subjects at hand to find them staring at each other holding a very animated, untranslatable conversation with their eyes. They were obviously arguing about something but doing so in a way only Tony Stark and Steve Rogers can manage, Tony’s eyebrows moving in ways that shouldn’t be humanly possible and Steve waving a spatula around, all the while looking at each other _very_ intently.

“Would you two like to be alone?” Clint said after a few moments.

The two men looked at him for a second before looking back at each other. “I’m not your mom,” Steve said, handing off Tony’s cup of coffee before returning again to the now over-cooked food. And that’s the way it was with Steve for Tony. He’s his teammate, he’s his friend, but he’s _not_ his mother, though he doesn’t deny being his lover.

“No, you just kidnap me from whatever bar I’m in,” Tony retorted.

“I don’t kidnap you,” Steve didn’t turn around, “I just remove you from the harmful situations you put yourself in.”

“We very clearly need to have a PowerPoint driven discussion about what does and does not constitute kidnapping in the modern age.”

“I didn’t...wait, you have slides about that?”

“Yes. Well, Pepper does.”

“Why?” was Steve’s next question, though it was clear he is leery of the answer.

“I wake up _one time_ with someone who wants even less to be there than me...”

And he was cut off because Steve was reaching for something in a top cabinet. He was reaching, stretching, giving Tony a perfect straight on view of his ass, and Tony wasn’t looking because Tony isn’t gay. Tony liked women. Countless of them, well certainly more than he could remember, could attest to the fact Tony loved women.

Then there’s Steve and life as a genius billionaire superhero was apparently not crazy complicated enough. It was not like he was against being into guys but why this guy and why _now_ for god’s sakes? He was much too old for a sexual identity crisis. He would have thought he’d gotten past this in college. True, he’d been 15 but everyone experimented in college, even 15 year old engineering geniuses.

But he’s got an eye full of Captain America ass and a head full of all the things Steve doesn’t say to the press. “I’m not gay,” he doesn’t say, “We’re just friends,” he doesn’t say, “Tony doesn’t like men,” he doesn’t say though it’s all true. So utterly true. Steve got what he was reaching for and Tony loses view of that specimen of an ass which he _doesn’t_ notice because Tony isn’t gay!

And, ok, he’s _way_ too hung over for this train of thought. Sure, he was self aware enough to know that when drunk he had some...gay tendencies...but he wasn’t nearly drunk enough right now and his thoughts toward the good captain had been getting...colorful.

It was at that moment Tony realized that Steve has been talking all this time and was expecting an answer to some unknown question. So he shoved an unearthly amount of eggs in his mouth. His hangover’s just making the whole world a little more wibbly-wobbly than usual, yep, that’s it, he’s not avoiding Steve’s question at all.

“They are totally our parents,” Clint said in evident disbelief, “How did I end up with parents?” Before anyone can respond to that a warning goes off and they are assembling.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m just saying, I know my childhood wasn’t ‘normal’ by any standards, but what kind of parents discuss kidnapping over the breakfast table?” Clint says on the battlefield later, because the man never met topic he could drop. It’s part of an ongoing conversation that the rest of the team is actively engaged in and that Steve is actively ignoring.

“Iron Man, on your 20!” Steve shouted into the comm system, though it isn’t necessary, Tony built them to detect the faintest whisper from the team.

“Got ‘em,” Iron Man announces in return, repulsors taking out two Doom-bots simultaneously.

“Pay closer attention to the battle. Your music can wait,” Steve says, trying hard not to think about how much he _does_ sound like a scolding housewife at that moment.

“Cap, you know I can’t bust baddies without my tunes.”

“Guys,” Black Widow’s voice came through the comm a little less solid than usual, “can we leave the maritals at home? I’m getting swamped over here.”

“Yeah! Mom, Dad, you shouldn’t fight in front of the kids,” Clint added his, very unhelpful, two cents.

Captain America groaned and exchanged a masked look with Iron Man, who just states, as if Steve needed reminding, “You’re Mom,” before blazing off in a streak of red and gold to relieve Black Widow.

70 years and he’d gone from leading the battle hardened Howling Commandoes to a group of over sized children and a gold-like alien. Times sure had changed.

And there was Tony once again throwing himself in harm’s way.

Steve was beginning to regret accusing the man of being unwilling to be the one to throw himself on the wire as he now seemed to have something to prove. Granted most all his hare-brained schemes work and he always made it out the other side alive, but it never looked that way going in and he always ran the risk of getting much more injured than he ended up being and much more than necessary. Tony was either going to be the death of himself or Steve. Because one of these days Tony’s going off half-cocked would get him killed. Either that or the stress would kill Steve or Steve would kill Tony _for_ the stress. Whatever the case the future was not looking good, or long, if this kept up.

Of course Steve worries about all his teammates when they are in danger not just especially Tony. Nope, Tony doesn’t hold a special place in his heart that feels like it’s been torn apart each time he has to watch Iron Man fall from the sky or take a particularly hard hit. And even if he does it is only because Tony is his friend. Steve’s mind calls Tony “friend” and the word feels like lead in his stomach. No, he absolutely refused to go through that again.

“We’ve got reports of more Doombots on 71st,” Coulson’s voice comes in steady on the comms but Steve knows the man is swaying on his feet with inaction.

“Understood,” Steve responds, then turns, quite unnecessarily because he’ll hear him either way, to address Tony, “Iron Man!”

“I’m on it,” Tony lands next to him for a moment so Steve can wrap his arm around the armor’s shoulders in what the Clint has dubbed “the hug and fly” before taking off. The name is pretty accurate and every time there was a brief moment where Steve wondered what it might feel like without the Iron Man armor in between them.

They arrived in less than a minute. There were significantly less Doombots than where they left the rest of the team but it appeared they have had more time uninhibited because the street around them is in complete disarray. Tony hovers a few feet above the street and loosens his grip on Steve to let him drop down.

The moment Steve’s feet touch earth it give way slightly beneath him and a nearby Doombot takes advantage of Steve momentary distraction to deliver a heavy, and all together lucky, blow to his ribs. A string of colorful expletives leave his lips at his foolishness before he even registers the pain.

“You know, you swear like a sailor when you think no ‘sensitive ears’ can hear you,” Tony’s smirk is audible through the comm line as he takes out the Doombot that took Steve by surprise.

“‘Sailor?’ No, I’m an Army man, Sailors learned from _me_ ,” Steve says slicing the edge of his shield through the next bot in line; seriously Doom never seemed to make these things any smarter. He was fairly certain Tony’s bot, Dummy, was smarter than the average Doombot. “Now give me some damn air support!” Smart or not they were starting to converge on his location.

“Yeah, yeah, Capsicle, don’t get your star spangled panties in a bunch,” Tony responds but Steve could hear the laughter in his voice and, not for the first time, wishes it could always be like this, not the battle but the easiness it brings between him and Tony. In the time since the Avengers first “assembled” he had come to regard Tony as his best friend but still there seemed to be a fundamental language barrier between the two of them.

“Don’t, for one minute, think that you had any effect whatsoever on my panties, Stark,” Steve retorted, completely dead-pan but thankful his blush didn’t translate over the comm line. He’d thought his service in the army had broken him of that ability but apparently all it took was one Tony Stark leer and he was red as a radish. Bucky would have given him hell for it. He tried not to think too hard about what those in his old life would have to say about Steve’s...particular regard for Howard’s son.

Iron Man faltered a moment in the air before recovering, clearly not expecting a cultural reference, “A chick flick? Really? Who put Natasha in charge of your film introduction?”

“It was Clint’s choice actually.”

“Huh...”

“Tony!” Steve watched as a Doombot grabbed Iron Man out of the sky by his ankle. As he ran in the direction of the offending robot he hoped he was imagining the sound of cracking bones in the comm as the bot whipped Tony through the sky like a ragdoll, dropping him to the ground when Steve’s shield cut through its chest. Tony normally would catch himself rather than just falling to earth but this time he had just crumpled. Thankfully the drop hadn’t been a long one.

“You ok?” Steve was by his side in a second but kept his back to him. He was worried as a mother hen, probably why he was “Mom” if he spared a thought for it at that moment, but the bots had started heading for their new location and he couldn’t afford to do a visual inspection when all he’d see is the armor anyway.

“I think my ankle’s broken,” there was a short cry where Steve assumed Tony had been Tony and tried to stand, “and possibly my leg.”

“Don’t move, you’ll only make it worse,” Steve said, taking out a series of Doombots with a ricocheting action with his shield while engaging another one with his fists.

“The armor will hold it in place well enough,” Tony replied, obviously trying for flippant but hitting way off mark when he was forced to make another pained sound.

“Obviously not or it wouldn’t be hurting you like that,” Steve had gone from worried to worried, frustrated, and unamused, and since worried and frustrated were only making things worse he decided to focus on unamused, “Look, I can’t fight them off and worry about you. So _stay still_.” Steve punctuated each word with a swing of his shield and a wrist flick, throw and return; later the robots lay in piles at his feet.

“Ah, Cap-ricorn, you worry about little ol’ me?”

This time Steve didn’t try to stop the sigh of exasperation Tony’s words invoked, “We need to get you to a hospital.”

“A hospital? Seriously?” Tony had, fortunately, stopped trying to get up, as stupid as he could be about self-injury he wasn’t a masochist.

“There is one a few blocks from here, it’s closest.”

“We should just wait for SHIELD medics.” Tony Stark, offering to wait for the medics? He must really hate hospitals.

“SHIELD is still an hour out thanks to that collapsed tunnel, this is faster.”

Before he could protest again Steve had gathered him, armor and all, into his arms and was marching determinedly toward the hospital.


	3. Chapter 3

“Put me down!” if the angry call didn’t get the occupants of the hospital waiting room’s attention the owner of the voice soon did. The next statement of, “I can walk you know!” rang a little clearer as the doors slide apart to grant access to a very unamused Captain America carrying a very irate Iron Man.

“That’s just the problem, Tony,” Steve said, scanning the room for his next action, “you can’t. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”

“The Mark VII weighs close to half a ton with me inside,” Tony, faceplate up, began to squirm a bit as if this emphasized his point, “put me down before your arms fall off.”

“Only if you promise to sit.”

“Steve, be reasonable,” Steve’s face showed little amusement for this irony, “there isn’t a chair in this hospital that could support me.”

“Then sit there,” Steve nodded his chin at an empty section of floor by the far wall.

“The floor?!?” Tony sounded honestly offended, “I am _Iron Man_ ,” Steve rolled his eyes at him continuing to the spot he had decided on, “Tony Stark in a multimillion dollar technological marvel, and you’re asking me to sit on the floor?”

“No, I’m _ordering you_ ,” Steve said in voice that clearly stated, _I am Captain America, I was defending my country before you were born. You really want to compare credentials with me?_

As Tony sank to the floor he pondered how Steve’s tone could carry a monologue of subtext by itself and muttered, “I’ll just take off the second you leave,” under his breath in token defiance.

Steve just frowned harder at his statement. After assuring himself Tony was seated safely on the floor he turned to a nearby young boy, clearly on his own and clearly intent on the interaction between them. “Hi.” Tony was a little more than puzzled by this turn of events.

The boy seemed a bit startled that he was being addressed, in a way only known by those who are used to living their whole lives unnoticed are capable, but managed to respond with an echoed, “Hi.”

“What’s your name?” Steve was hilariously good with kids; at least once they were out of diapers and of speaking age, before that it was more hilarious than good. Tony was side struck with the thought: _Someone needs to make that man a father._ It wasn’t the thought that caught him off guard but the accompanying wave of jealousy for the woman that filled that role. Yeah, Tony might have the smallest bit of a crush on Steve but not like _that_. Nope, because Tony? Not gay. Not even slightly. Nope.

“Peter,” the boy replied so timidly that it would have made Tony’s heart break if he wasn’t so buried deep in frustration, humiliation, confusion and anger right now.

“Nice to meet you, Peter. I’m Steve and this,” he said gesturing behind him where Tony was sitting against the wall, “is my friend, Tony.”

“That’s Iron Man.” the boy stated, obviously not because Steve didn’t know but simply just to have something to say.

“That’s right, and I’m Captain America. We’re Avengers. How would you like to be an Avenger like us?” Ok, seriously, where was Steve going with this?  
Peter’s face lit up and he nodded furiously.

“Good,” Steve dropped his I-love-kids voice and adopted his Captain America, one usually reserved for issuing battle orders or when Tony really pissed him off, “Iron Man is hurt and if he gets up to walk around he’ll hurt himself worse. I need your help to make sure he doesn’t. Can you do that?” Of all the low down dirty tricks. He was Tony Stark! He didn’t need a pint-sized _baby-sitter_.

“Yes, sir, Captain America, sir,” Peter jumped out of his seat and saluted.

“I’m counting on you, Avenger,” Cap saluted back then proceeded off to the front desk to get Tony checked in.

Peter, instead of taking back his chair, just looked at Tony considering-ly then, with a nod of determination, plopped himself down in Tony’s gold-titanium alloy lap, arms crossed.

“What the hell, kid?” Tony exclaimed.

“Captain America doesn’t want you to move from this spot,” all of Peter’s shy, quite voice was gone, Captain _Fucking_ America had given him a job and by-god he was going to do it come hell or high-ly pissed off Iron Man.

“And how is sitting on me going to accomplish that?”

“Well, you’ve got me beat in strength and size but from here I can struggle in such a way that you will have to risk injuring me in order to stand,” Peter turned his head to look into Tony’s face, “and I’m guessing you aren’t going to be willing to resort to those measures just to defy Captain America.”

“That...” well what that was, was a brilliant fucking strategy, “How old are you, Peter?”

“10, Iron Man.”

“10, huh? You are pretty smart, Peter, I’ll give you that. And you’re an Avenger now, remember? You can call me Tony.”

There’s a period of awkward silence, where Tony thinks he’s gone toe-to-toe with congress committees and board panels and Nick Fury and, on one notable occasion, the god of mischief but this 10 year old kid will be the silent awkward death of him, before Tony realizes the source. There is an elephant in the room that he calls himself an idiot for taking so long to identify. “So what brings you here, Pete? You don’t look hurt or sick to me.”

In his lap Peter cringes like he was hoping not to have to answer that exact question and Tony once again thinks that this is a kid who is so very accustomed to being looked over that his natural state is one of invisibility. Tony knew exactly how it felt to be 10 and invisible. “The library’s closed and this is as good a place to hide as any.”

“Who are you hiding from?”

“Bullies,” he says with a shrug he’s too young to bear, like needing to hide from other kids is a normal thing, “They like to beat me up and drag my books in the mud.”

“You know what. I can think of a much better place to hide than a library,” Tony says and accesses a small sliver of a panel on his chest plate, pulling out what looks to be a business card and hands it to the kid, “Here. Use this to get entry into Avenger’s Tower.”

“JARVIS access card format to biometric settings for current holder,” Tony says as Peter turns the card over in his hands, “Access code ‘Avengers’ omega level.” The surface of the card shimmers in the florescent lighting flickering a moment before tiny digital font demands the card holder’s name.

“Peter Parker,” Peter says, with only a small amount of visible hesitation, rather like Steve when he’s confronted with something obliquely futuristic. The card flickers again before declaring its self the “Stark Tower, Avenger’s Access Card: Peter Parker.”

“Why?” Peter asked after studying the card for a moment.

This time it’s Tony’s turn to shrug, “Cap hates bullies more than anything. We’ll keep you safe.”

Tony realized that this had the potential to end in him opening his own daycare/after school program but he had always been truly terrible at denying his impulses and the shadow in Peter’s eyes was so achingly familiar. Not even in his heart of hearts is Tony willing to see so much of his own childhood reflected in the eyes of this boy he doesn’t really know at all and knows too well, but that doesn’t stop him from having the compulsion to erase it from his eyes. Besides, he had Pepper, or whatever unfortunate underling she had roped into it, to deal with any...unexpected results.

“Avenger, report.” Steve said in his Captain America voice when he returned.

“Situation under control. Iron Man contained, Captain.” Peter jumped off Tony's lap to do his report, “Look! He gave me an access card.”

“You gave him an access card?” Steve gives him a look that keeps it’s monologue secret. Tony really doesn’t know how to respond when Steve’s looks keep silent, so he resorts to sass and pretends he doesn’t see the little smile at the corner of Steve’s mouth that’s down right fond, because Tony knows it’s not something Steve means or means to show.

“You made him an Avenger.”

“That’s not...” Steve let out a groan which Tony put up as a point for him on the scoreboard he most certainly did not keep in his head, “Doctor now. We’ll discuss this after.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Tony began, taking advantage of Peter’s preoccupation with Steve’s return to try once again get his feet under him, “You got me to stay here with guilt from a little kid, if you think I’m going to...”

“You’re coming, Tony,” Steve’s Captain America voice commands as he unceremoniously picks Tony, armor and all, up off the floor and carries him off in the direction he came from.

 

Peter watched them walk away, or at least he watched Cap-, no Steve, walk away. No way that just happened...Did it? He looked at the card in his hand. It shimmered like it was printed in pixels instead of ink. No day would ever be able to compete with this one as the: Best. Day. Ever.


End file.
